You might if you rooted for either of Madrid’s rival soccer teams and knew that three tickets to their most anticipated match ever were being thrown in “for free.”

As Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid prepare to battle Saturday (2 p.m. ET, Fox) for the Champions League title, Europe’s elite club soccer competition, fans are paying some of the highest prices on record for a seat at the game in the Estádio da Luz in Lisbon.

It reads like a retail riddle: How can a consumer earn nearly €2,000 by spending €949 on a new television?

The deal is part of a competition that was organized by the Media World chain in Italy last month, tied to a much larger competition: the World Cup. Shoppers who bet on an Italian victory in the soccer tournament could get a 200% discount on their purchase if their home team wins.

MADRID— Xacobo Rodriguez, out of work and with an infant child, says he lives in a constant state of dread. “You always fear the day there will be a knock on the door and then you’ll be evicted from your home,” he says.

Mr. Rodriguez, 38 years old, is one of the many Spaniards who can’t pay pricey mortgages taken out before a property bubble popped in 2008. Worse, his mother, who guaranteed his loan with her own home, is also at risk. “I feel we both might sink,” he says.

When Jenaro García’s tech company Let’s Gowex SA won the top prize from Spain’s marketing association in May, the presenter hailed him as an innovator who was making wireless Internet ubiquitous, “a magician who converted Wi-Fi into water.”

MADRID—Tapas, shopping, beaches, the famous Gaudi architecture: Catalonia, and in particular its capital Barcelona, has a lot to entice tourists with. But a chance to live like a local and rent a room through Airbnb may soon no longer be one of them.

Catalonia’s regional government said Tuesday that Airbnb is in “serious” breach of regional law and that it has ordered the company to pay €30,000 ($41,000) in fines within the month or begin adhering to Catalan law.

The stock of Spanish tech company Gowex reeled for a second straight day Wednesday in the wake of a scathing report by a New York investment firm, while the selloff spread to other companies in Spain’s junior stock market.

Gowex’s stock plummeted 26% Wednesday following a 46% decline a day earlier, after investment firm Gotham City Research LLC issued a report on Tuesday alleging that 90% of Gowex’s reported revenues were nonexistent and saying the stock was worthless.

Japan’s Mount Ontake volcano erupted without warning on Saturday, sending plumes of heavy, toxic volcanic ash and rock into the air, and causing embers to fall nearly two miles from its crater.

So far, 12 victims have been retrieved from the mountain, identified, and confirmed dead. Today, Nagano Prefecture Police said that 24 bodies remain on the slopes of the volcano, bringing the suspected death toll to at least 36.

More than 500 rescuers returned to the scene today. It is not yet clear how the victims died, but asphyxiation from poisonous gases is common in eruptions of this kind. This helicopter footage shows the ongoing rescue mission.

A German company is offering a $30 million bounty for the identities of the individuals responsible for downing Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine this summer.

Pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine are suspected of firing surface-to-air missiles at the civilian aircraft, which crashed July 17 while flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, killing all 298 people on board. A preliminary report carried out by Dutch investigators said that the crash was the result of structural damage caused by a large number of high-energy objects that struck the Boeing plane from the outside.

Police in Fort Lauderdale, Florida arrested a 90-year-old man last weekend for feeding homeless people — an act of charity he’s been doing regularly for the past 23 years.

At least four police cruisers and a half dozen uniformed cops were waiting for Arnold Abbott and two pastors when they arrived at a local Florida park Sunday afternoon to distribute food to more than 100 homeless and hungry people, according to the Broward-Palm Beach New Times. Abbot, the founder of the service organization Love Thy Neighbor, managed to dole out four meals before he was placed in handcuffs and issued a summons.

An unmanned Antares rocket ferrying supplies to the International Space Station exploded Tuesday just six seconds after liftoff at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Wallops, Virginia. No personnel were near the rocket when it exploded, and no injuries have been reported by NASA.

The Antares rocket appeared to abruptly lose upward momentum after it launched, falling back toward the ground before exploding in mid-air.

The Antares — a medium-lift rocket — was carrying a Cygnus spacecraft packed with about 5,000 pounds of cargo to take to the International Space Station. NASA confirmed at 6:45pm ET that all personnel were accounted for. Officials on NASA TV reported significant property and vehicle damage.